TL;DR: Harvest was bought by Bending Spoons in 2025 and changed how it charges. On top of the per-seat rate (Teams from $9/seat/month, Enterprise from $14), most plans now add usage-based fees for active projects, clients, tasks and invoices. Some teams have seen renewals jump sharply. There is a fixed-price option, and if you decide to move, you have choices. Here is how to decide.
The renewal email arrives, and the number doesn’t match last year’s. You’ve got the same team and the same projects, but the Harvest price increase on the invoice includes an extra digit you didn’t budget for. You’re not imagining it, and you’re not alone.
In 2025, Bending Spoons bought Harvest, and the way it charges changed. The per-seat price on the pricing page is now only part of the picture. For some accounts, the real bill looks nothing like it.
This isn’t a takedown. Harvest is a mature, reliable tool, and for plenty of teams, the new pricing barely moves. But if your renewal caught you off guard, or you’re reviewing your tools before committing to another year, you need two things: a clear explanation of what changed, and a straight answer on your options. That’s what this post covers. (Prices below are in US dollars, which is how Harvest bills.)
What actually changed with Harvest’s pricing?
In 2025, Bending Spoons bought Harvest. Harvest then changed from a simple per-seat rate to a per-seat base PLUS usage-based fees, charged on your active projects, clients, tasks and invoicing. A fixed-price “Unlimited” billing option sits alongside the usage-based “Flex” one.
Bending Spoons is an Italian software company that buys established apps and runs them at scale. It completed its purchase of Harvest in July 2025. Its portfolio also includes Evernote, WeTransfer and Vimeo, and in each case, users reported price rises after the deal.
Here’s how it works. Harvest’s help centre now lists two plans, Teams and Enterprise, each billed one of two ways. Flex is usage-based: a per-seat rate plus charges based on your previous period’s activity. Unlimited is a fixed usage fee. Only projects, clients and tasks with time tracked in the period count, and each plan includes a free allowance before usage fees start. For new accounts, usage charges don’t begin until the second renewal.
That last detail matters. The bill that shocks people often isn’t the first one. It’s the one a year later.
How much does Harvest cost now?
Harvest has a Free plan (1 seat, 2 projects), Teams from $9/seat/month ($108/year) and Enterprise from $14/seat/month ($168/year), with a 20% discount for paying annually. On Flex billing, usage fees for active projects, clients, tasks and invoices stack on top, above a free allowance.
On Harvest’s pricing page, Teams covers time tracking, team reporting, invoicing and accounting integrations with Xero, QuickBooks and Stripe. Enterprise adds the reporting and admin layer: profitability reporting, timesheet approvals, an activity log and single sign-on.
One thing worth knowing: profitability reporting, the thing that tells you which clients and projects actually make money, sits on the Enterprise tier only. So does timesheet approval.
Resource scheduling isn’t in any plan. Harvest sells it separately as Forecast, and third-party breakdowns put it at around $5 per person per month on top. For a 20-person team, that’s another $1,200 a year just to see who’s free and who’s overloaded.
And a quiet default worth checking: when a trial ends, Harvest’s checkout pre-selects Enterprise plus Annual. If you don’t change it, that’s the plan you’re on.
Why are some bills jumping so much?
Because usage fees scale with activity, not just headcount. A growing team creates more projects, clients and invoices, and each one can add to the bill. Reported renewals include jumps of roughly 480 to 500 percent, and single accounts moved into five-figure annual pricing. These are outliers, but the mechanism applies to every Flex account.
The per-seat figure is easy to plan around. Usage fees aren’t, because they move with how you work. Run more projects, bill more clients, send more invoices, and the number climbs.
Some of the reported jumps are severe. One Reddit thread is titled, plainly, “This Harvest App price increase is insane.” Reddit users have reported bills rising by roughly 480%, and a G2 reviewer described a team of 20 hitting close to $20,000 a year. Other write-ups cite a single seat going from $12 a month to around $1,900, and an account automatically moved onto a tier above $19,000 a year.
Treat those as the extreme end, not the average. But they come from the same pricing model that applies to your account, so it’s worth understanding before you renew, not after.
Is Harvest still worth it?
For teams that mainly need to track time and send invoices, Harvest still does the job well. It’s been around since 2006, the interface is familiar, and the integrations with Xero, QuickBooks and Stripe are solid. If your bill held steady, there’s a decent case for staying put.
The limits show up when you need more than that. Harvest has no native project management, no task boards or timelines, so most teams run a second tool alongside it and reconcile the two. Harvest locks profitability reporting to the Enterprise tier. Resource planning costs extra. None of that is a dealbreaker on its own. Together, they’re the reason a price rise often triggers a wider review of whether a project management tool should be doing more of the job.
The honest answer: worth it depends on your usage, and on what you need beyond time and invoicing.
What are your options if your price went up?
You have four. Do nothing if your bill held steady. Switch to Harvest’s fixed-price Unlimited billing to cap usage fees. Model your real usage before you renew. Or evaluate alternatives. The right move depends on how much of your bill is seats versus usage, and what you need beyond time tracking.
Start with your own numbers. In Settings, Harvest shows your current usage and projected charges, so you can see how much of the bill is seats and how much is usage. If it’s mostly usage, the fixed-price Unlimited option may cap the damage without changing tools.
If you’re reviewing anyway, do it properly. List your must-have features first, then compare on fit, not just headline price. Our guide on how to choose business software walks through that, and there’s a strong case for weighing fit over features when tools look similar on paper.
Whatever you do, don’t drift back to spreadsheets to dodge the cost. It feels free, but tracking projects in spreadsheets quietly costs more in missed time and manual reconciliation than the tool ever did.
If you decide to move, we’ve covered Harvest alternatives in a separate post.
Where that leaves you
The Harvest price increase isn’t a glitch or a mistake. It’s a pricing-model change that came with the 2025 ownership move, and the right response depends on your numbers, not on panic.
Quick recap. Check whether it’s seats or usage driving your bill. Consider fixed-price Unlimited billing if usage is the problem. Model the real cost before you renew. And if the increase exposed gaps you’d been working around, review properly rather than reaching for a spreadsheet.
Not sure whether to stay, switch billing, or move? Book an App Fit Sprint and we’ll help you work out your options based on how you actually work, not a sales pitch. Vendor-neutral, no commissions, no affiliate links.
